1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical network system which transmits image information by using an analog transmission line and so on.
2. Description of the Related Art
An endoscopic examination for directly observing the inside of a living body has recently become more important in diagnosis. In particular, the appearance of an electron endoscope enables many people to make observation on a television monitor, and image processing and the like with the electron endoscope have been studied. In such a situation, the endoscopic examination is carried out not only in an endoscopic examination room, but also in an X-ray examination room, an operating room and so on, and furthermore, images obtained by the endoscope are read in a wide range of places, for example, in an endoscopic examination room, a conference room and a lecture hall. Therefore, efficient endoscopic examinations in various places and easy endoscopic image observation have been strongly demanded.
Turning attention to the outside situation surrounding the endoscopic field, large-scale office automation using various kinds of medical information systems, such as PACS (Picture Archiving & Communication System) and PHD (Personal Health Data management system), have been planned in hospitals.
However, PACS, whose use is mainly examined in the X-ray field, requires a huge investment in equipment, a great amount of time to transfer image data and so on, and thus has not yet been practically used.
In the case of PACS, since patient data (for example, ID No. and name) and a vast amount of image information are transmitted digitally, it takes several minutes to transmit one image.
Furthermore, PHD also has not reached practical use due to problems in recording media and system operation.
Japanese Laid-open Patent No. Sho 61-187434 discloses a system which transmits image information in both analog and digital signals, distinguishes the kind of the signal by using components of a system, and performs image processing according to the resulting distinction.
In the above prior art, although image information can be analogously transmitted in a short time, it takes much time to digitally transmit the image information.